I’m reading in the papers that America’s opium crisis is on its way here. And it’s worst up north. Apparently, ten percent of Blackpool’s population are on prescribed opiates, such as Co-codamol, tramadol and morphine. Ten percent! And that’s not including anti-anxiety drugs, antidepressants or all the illegal drugs people take to get by. Opiates are powerful stuff and highly addictive. It …
Maria – Nurse
People - The life behind the uniform. NHS is its people and everyone has their own life story and unique reason for joining. The Italians have been heading to Britain for years. Sensing opportunity and eager to work, they came in large numbers after the Second World War, settled in Bedford, Glasgow and London to work in industries, catering and agriculture. I’ve met them as patients in …
It’s spring! Oh, no – it’s gone!
England, stop messing with my head! For a few days in February, it was not March or April but proper May, if not June, and my frozen heart thawed. Did yours as well? After the best summer for decades, I had to endure a long and dark winter, longer and darker than ever before, or so it seemed. And then, suddenly, comes spring... Or summer, and it's 20 degrees and sunshine and, for a moment, …
Rodney – Volunteer
People – The life behind the uniform. NHS is its people and everyone has their own life story and unique reason for joining. First one out in this new (as from March 2019) section of the website is Rodney. He works as a volunteer once a week on a ward in a hospital in south London. I’m Rodney and I grew up in a small rural town of Nebraska, America. It was a small farming community of five or …
A man from the past.
I ventured out of the capital and met a man from the past. Far down in Surrey, more Reigate than Croydon, proper safe Tory seat Surrey, leafy suburbia-sorted pension-two cars in the carport-mortgage paid off-white skin Surrey, an elderly gentleman who rather resembled Prince Philip, woke up from his anaesthetic. On duty in the recovery room that day was, apart from myself, an Indian, two …
Born and bred in Deep South London
It was a very quiet morning on the ward - I had only one patient. I pulled up a chair beside him and we were off. On a two-hour talk. The twists and turns were several and I quite liked the guy. But then it got difficult... The twenty-seven-year-old man was the only patient on the ward. He had sustained a broken clavicle bone in a kickboxing session. The fracture had been mended and he’d gone …
